FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ZILLOW - PAGE 4

Chicago's Gold Coast has lost its cachet, at least when it comes to the best city neighborhoods for Halloween revelers looking to load their pillowcases and plastic pumpkins. Ravenswood Manor is the new best neighborhood in the city for trick-or-treating, according to real estate site Zillow. Rounding out the top 5 neighborhoods are Wrightwood Neighbors, Edgebrook, North Center and Lincoln Park. Last year's top five for trick-or-treating were, in order, the Gold Coast, Roscoe Village, Ravenswood Manor, Wrigleyville and Bucktown.

Q: In a previous column, you mentioned a hard-money loan. Do you know any companies that make these types of loans to homeowners? Also, the person that wrote in mentioned how Zillow valued his home at much more than what he paid for it 16 months before. I am in the same situation. Do you think he could sell his home for over a hundred thousand dollars more in just 16 months? Do Zillow and Trulia give accurate estimates? A: First, I do not recommend any company, or any lender.

LOS ANGELES, Aug 7 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would push to have a broad package of housing reform measures passed through Congress by the end of the year. Obama made his remarks during an interview with housing website Zillow. The president announced a series of housing proposals on Tuesday that would include winding down mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He said he would advocate for his proposals once lawmakers returned to Washington in September.

In the old days, if you were looking for a new place to live, you picked up the newspaper, looked at the real estate classifieds, put on comfortable shoes or gassed up the car and began a house-to-house search. The Internet has made the job easier, at least on your feet. In short order, you can look at all kinds of sales and rental listings just about anywhere — around the block or across the country. Given their promise of information from all over the place, how reliable are websites such as Zillow, Trulia, HomeGain and a growing number of others?

A little more than 46 percent of all single-family homes with a mortgage in the Chicago area were underwater in the year's third quarter, far more than the nation as a whole. The percentage of homes in the Chicago area with negative equity, meaning more is owed on the mortgage than the value of the underlying property, rose 9 percent from the second quarter, according to a report scheduled to be released Tuesday by real estate website Zillow. Nationally, 28.6 percent of homes with mortgages were underwater at the end of September.

More homeowners with mortgages are recovering equity in their homes that was lost during the housing crisis, but the low end of the local housing market remains in bad shape. So too, do homeowners in some outlying Chicago-area counties, according to a report by Zillow released Tuesday. Almost 45 percent of Chicago-area homeowners with homes valued at less than $103,800 were underwater on their mortgages at the end of March, owing more on the loans than the current value of the property.

(Adds CEO comments, details on mobile business) By Olivia Oran and Alistair Barr Sept 20 (Reuters) - Trulia Inc shares surged more than 40 percent in the online real estate listing service's market debut on Thursday, as investors bet on an improvement in the housing market and growth of the company's mobile business. The stock opened at $22.10 after pricing at $17. By the afternoon, it was up 47.6 percent at $25.10 on the New York Stock Exchange. The IPO raised $102 million on Wednesday.

If you're a first-time buyer shopping for an affordable home this spring, brace yourself for a search. The real estate market is far from booming, and prices remain depressed, but low mortgage rates and an improving economy could boost competition. "We might actually have a homebuying season this spring," said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com, a mortgage information website. And finding a home that's within your budget could require some legwork. The median price paid by first-time buyers in 2011 was $155,000, according to the National Association of Realtors.

What mortgage meltdown? While millions of Americans have suffered the angst of lost homes, equity and pride, nearly a third of the nation's homeowners have no mortgage at all, according to an estimate released Thursday by real estate website Zillow. The free-and-clear class includes, predictably, retirees who have chipped away at their debts for decades, but also a surprisingly high percentage of young people and those who live in relatively affordable regions. Economists and housing analysts said that Zillow's estimates are in line with historical norms.